Editing Serial Line Internet Protocol (section)

{{Short description|Internet Protocol encapsulation for serial ports and router connections}}
{{IPstack}}

The '''Serial Line Internet Protocol''' ('''SLIP''')<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
   |url=http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/qa/0531freed.html
   |title=Internet Q&A |date=May 31, 1996}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/08/business/the-executive-computer-for-befuddled-newcomers-easier-access-to-the-internet.html
|title=The Executive Computer; For Befuddled Newcomers, Easier Access
|date=May 8, 1994}}</ref> is an [[encapsulation (networking)|encapsulation]] of the [[Internet Protocol]]{{efn|SLIP does not actually care about the internal structures of IP: any [[network layer]] protocols can be sent over the wire.}} designed to work over [[serial port]]s and [[router (computing)|router]] connections. It is documented in {{IETF RFC|1055}}. On personal computers, SLIP has largely been replaced by the [[Point-to-Point Protocol]] (PPP), which is better engineered, has more features, and does not require its IP address configuration to be set before it is established. On [[microcontrollers]], however, SLIP is still the preferred way of encapsulating [[Internet Protocol|IP packets]], due to its very small overhead.

Some people refer to the successful and widely used RFC 1055 Serial Line Internet Protocol as "Rick Adams' SLIP",<ref name="rfc1547">{{IETF RFC|1547}}: "Requirements for an Internet Standard Point-to-Point Protocol" </ref> to avoid confusion with other proposed protocols named "SLIP". Those other protocols include the much more complicated {{IETF RFC|914}} appendix D [[Serial Line Interface Protocol]].<ref name="rfc1547" />